Firstly, I would like to set the tone for the context of the article. We will refer to three categories of suited connectors: high, middle, and low. If you were to play ALL suited connectors in No Limit Texas Holdem, your win rate with large ones would be pretty good, win rate with middle ones will be marginal to low, and you would not likely show a win rate at all with the smaller ones. Why is this? The answer is mostly in the value. (Note: This article is written in general – your profits might increase on the BU with low suited connectors, for example, when opponents fold to often in the blinds, etc).

Two pair with suited connectors

Flopping two pair is strong, but two pair does not have much room to improve and the turn or river will often counterfeit your lower pair. This is especially true with low cards, sometimes true with medium cards, and rarely true with high cards. Let’s look at an extreme example. You open in position with 23s and get three callers. The flop comes K,2,3 rainbow. One of your floaters played KJ and hit top pair. The other played 77. Another played 83. If the flop either pairs up at some point (other than the remaining 2s and 3s) your pair of 2s are worthless. Yes you are certainly ahead, but you are vulnerable. Any K, J, 8, 7, or a running pair and you are gone. I’m not saying that you are not ahead and that this is not a good flop for you, it is. It’s just that the smallest two pair hands are exposed to pretty much anything. Check out Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book of Poker in the two pair section. As you can see the high/middle/low thing comes into play quite often on later streets.

The flush and suited connectors

I probably would not stack off deep with a medium or low flush, but I would give it a go with a good-sized river bet against most players. Just like the 2 pair hand above, the very low flush in No Limit Texas Holdem is still a valuable hand - but it is vulnerable. When the river brings the 4th flush suit to the board is one great example. Of course cooler flushes are another. Apparently, the low flushes get coolered and counterfeited more than the medium ones enough to make playing medium suited connectors profitable in the long run but not so much the small ones. Once again, “high/middle/low”.

Straights and suited connectors

Firstly, though it is a rare situation in poker, any suited connector lower than 76 cannot provide the “high end / idiot end” standoff that leaves the holder of the former with a stack-sized pot. 76 itself also offers lots of possibilities to catch players who hold the A and has made the wheel straight and stack off to the mortal nuts. 56 and 43 can still make the absolute nuts, but I suppose not often enough to be profitable. 43 and below also make many less straights than the middle suited connectors. Wheel straights when you hold an A will never be the absolute nuts. Straights are also very easily counterfeited and betting action is often subject to slowing down on later streets due to scare cards. You are less likely to be counterfeited when you hold the business end of the straight as compared to the ass end. How many times have you seen a 4-to-a-straight board (with a missing card in the gap) starting from around 7 or 8 and someone stacks off to the player who held the cooling high card. For example, the board is 7,8,9,J. One player may have 56, another, T8, and the last, QT. I see this happen a lot - with the T8 player losing a juicy river bet or an all-in.

Suited connector summary

So zoom back in your mind and think of the suited connectors in thirds. The large ones win all three of these hand types very often, the medium ones often enough, and the smaller ones not often enough. Small suited connector-made hands are simply too often coolered and counterfeited for even the above average player to make profitable.